What's Better To Use For Flowers

small flowers. Royal icing or buttercream? And do you just pipe them on the cake or on parchment first? When I have made them with buttercream and put them on parchment paper they fall apart when I put them on the cake. I put them in the freezer for 2 days and another time let them sit out for 2 days. Still the same results. Am I doing something wrong?

And how do you get sugars, nuts, and candies on the sides of the cake uniform? When I made a cake and put orange sugar on I couldn't figure out how to do it and make it all look uniform. I basically had to throw it on there as I didn't want to use it on the top of my cake, just the sides. There's got to be a better way..Thanks!

I sometimes do small flowers in buttercream. I pipe them on parchment paper, put them in them in the freezer and use an offset spatula to take them off the parchment and place them on the cake. When the ones on the parchment start to get soft I put them back in the freezer to set up and keep going until I'm done.

I have put cake crumbs on the side of the cake by putting them in my hands and gently pressing on the sides. Sometimes you have to lift and tilt the cake slightly to the side at an angle to make sure you don't miss a spot. If I have a cake of poured ganache I leave it on the rack to make sure I don't disturb the top. It just takes time and practice. You'll get it down.

Since you're having trouble transferring them when you make them in advance, I'd suggest eliminating the extra step and piping them directly on the cake in buttercream.

(From your other post encountering this problem) When the flower pulls up with the tip, it's because they are small and don't have enough weight to stick to the waxed paper surface. Piping directly on the cake will also eliminate this problem because buttercream will stick to buttercream better than to waxed paper.